Abstract:

Background: For cellulosic biofuels processes, suitable characterization of the lignin remaining within the cell wall and correlation of quantified properties of lignin to cell wall polysaccharide enzymatic deconstruction is underrepresented in the literature. This is particularly true for grasses which represent a number of promising bioenergy feedstocks where quantification of grass lignins is particularly problematic due to the high fraction of p-hydroxycinnamates. The main focus of this work is to use grasses with a diverse range of lignin properties, and applying multiple lignin characterization platforms, attempt to correlate the differences in these lignin properties to the susceptibility to alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP) pretreatment and subsequent enzymatic deconstruction.

Citation:

Li, M., C. E. Foster, et al. (2012). "Structural characterization of alkaline hydrogen peroxide pretreated grasses exhibiting diverse lignin phenotypes."  Biotechnol Biofuels 5:38 (epub ahead of print).